Wednesday, March 03, 2010

"He would take the bodyguards with him anywhere he went, but there was no room for them on the flight," said Talal Nasser, a spokesman for Hamas in Damascus. "Therefore he traveled alone, and the security guards were slated to join him the next day."

Sounds unlikely. No serious security team would let the man they are defending go it alone simply because they couldn't get plane tickets - they would stop him going. (And surely there are other flights to Dubai anyway.)

But then he adds,

Despite previous reports, the Hamas man said Mabhouh visited the emirate under his real identity. "He had five passports, one with his real name and the rest with different names, but this time he traveled under his real identity," said Nasser. "He had traveled to Dubai many times in the past in the same way, without any problems."